SL8B (06.26.11)

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I was a bit trepid about performing at SL8B, the eighth birthday celebration of the online virtual world Second Life. I'll explain why: the last time I played at the annual event was at SL5B, three years ago. While the show itself went fine, the lack of coordination and communication beforehand was maddening, and the team who ran the show seemed snotty and ungrateful to the folks who were donating their time and energy to perform.

I purposefully did not participate for the next two years of SL birthdays as a result of that experience. However, my friend Diana Renoir, who is involved in a number of large event coordination activities in SL, told me that the celebration was in much better hands now, and asked if I would give it a shot. I did, and I'm very glad to say that it was like a night-and-day difference by comparison. You would think that especially by today (the final day of the official celebration) that all of the hosts, stage coordinators, and liaisons would be completely fried. Instead, I found their system of confirming stream function in advance of the show (so there would be no issues for artists when they got onstage) to be very efficient, and as a result the technical side of getting live audio to a lot of people at once was handled smoothly.

Made it to the stage. Time to rock SL8B. Photo by Kat.

Also -- and don't underestimate the importance of this -- the folks running SL8B seemed appreciative and grateful to the artists who were performing. They were friendly to the crowds and supportive of every aspect of the event. Gotta hand it to them for their hard work; it was effective!

I'm that tiny dot in the distance. Photo by Kat.

So, on to the show itself. We had a very nice crowd of over 60 SL avatars in the 4-sim Main Stage area. I went on stage following Cypress Rosewood (who was performing along with fire dancers and an elephant), and I knew that my brand of silly rock and pop music wasn't exactly a smooth transition. So, I threw caution to the wind and opened up with a lively Joni MItchell tune, figuring that those who liked that kind of thing would hang out, and most of them did.

Zak's SL8B Set List...
Big Yellow Taxi (Joni MItchell)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Nowhere Man (The Beatles)
Landslide (Fleetwood Mac)
Broken Day (Zak Claxton)
Save It For Later (English Beat)
You're Like a Cloud (Zak Claxton)
On the Way Home (Buffalo Springfield)
Man of Constant Sorrow (Traditional)
Radio Free Europe (REM)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Redemption Song (Bob Marley)

Special thanks to the folks who ran SL8B for their fine work (especially Diana Renoir, Lisa Fossett, ChatBrat Pippita, Dagoth Graves, Jahman Ochs, and Doctor Gascoigne)! Congrats to Linden Lab on eight years! Finally, thanks to everyone who supported my show today!
fay Rehula, Tristan Rogers, Kat Claxton, Delphy Heungsung, pallina60 Loon, Liam Metaluna, Blindboy Gumbo, Diana Renoir, TheaDee, Juliette Venom, Toxic Darkmatter, Wildstar Beaumont, Janie Xofan, and Cordelia Cerise!